PATRIOT Act extension buried in funding bill

Why the Hell Did Democrats Just Extend the Patriot Act? | The New Republic - Sam Adler-Bell:

November 20, 2019 - "Tuesday ... the House of Representatives voted to fund the government through December 20 ... to prevent a government shutdown and forestall a debate about border-wall funding.... Democratic leaders had slipped something else into the bill: a three-month extension of the Patriot Act, the post-9/11 law that gave the federal government sweeping surveillance and search powers and circumvented traditional law-enforcement rules.  Key provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire on December 15, including Section 215, the legal underpinning of the call detail records program exposed in the very first Edward Snowden leak.

"'It’s surreal,' Representative Justin Amash told me on Tuesday, just before the vote. Amash, an independent who left the Republican Party over his opposition to President Trump, pointed to the hypocrisy on both sides of the aisle. Republicans have 'decried FISA abuse' against the president and his aides, he said, referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 'and Democrats have highlighted Trump’s abuse of his executive powers, yet they’re teaming up to extend the administration’s authority to warrantlessly gather data on Americans.'

"By tucking the measure into a must-pass bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi forced many members who oppose the Patriot Act to vote in favor of its extension.... Amash submitted an amendment to strip the Patriot Act language from the budget bill, but the amendment was blocked by Democrats on the Rules Committee.  Just 10 Democrats defied the leadership to vote against the resolution....

"There’s no other way to spin this,' a progressive staffer on the Hill told me. 'This was a major capitulation. The progressive caucus has touted itself as an organization that can wield power and leverage the votes of its 90 members. And they didn’t lift a finger. Democratic leadership rammed this down their throats.'"
Read more: https://newrepublic.com/article/155793/hell-democrats-just-extend-patriot-act

Trump signs temporary spending bill, punting government-shutdown risks to just before Christmas | Markets Insider - Gina Heeb:
November 21, 2019 - "President Donald Trump on Thursday approved a measure that would stave off the threat of a government shutdown until just days before Christmas.... The short-term spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, was signed into law just hours before a critical midnight deadline. Federal funding was scheduled to expire after that point, and several federal agencies would have been forced to shutter. But it will keep the government running only until December 20....

"Border-funding issues were avoided in [the] stopgap measure signed on Thursday, but other major provisions were tucked in. The legislation reauthorizes parts of the Patriot Act through March, raises the pay for members of the military by about 3%, and increases the Commerce Department budget ahead of the 2020 census.... The Senate passed the continuing resolution 74-20 earlier on Thursday."

Read more: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-punts-government-shutdown-threat-just-before-christmas-spending-bill-2019-11-1028709853

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Libertarians & everyone else react to #TheMemo

Here's What Rand Paul, Mark Meadows, and Others in Washington Are Saying About the Nunes Memo - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Scott Shackford:

February 2, 2018 - "Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, released his short memo today after the White House agreed to its declassification. The document claims that the FBI withheld from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the 'Steele Dossier,' used as justification to snoop on former Donald Trump adviser Carter Page, was funded by Democratic Party sources and pushed by FBI officials with an agenda against Trump....

"House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) calls the memo 'partisan spin'.... Yet she doesn't actually counter any of the claims in the memo itself.... John McCain (R-Ariz.), no friend of Trump's, does not want the Nunes memo to threaten the investigation of whether Russia colluded with members of Trump's campaign during the election outcomes....

"But some Republican lawmakers, like Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), have been philosophically consistent. This tweet may sound like what we've been hearing from other Trump supporters:

So, there it is. The FBI took an unverified political dossier, paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, and they used it as a central piece in their request to get a warrant for spying on American citizens and political opponents in the Trump campaign.

... but Meadows, as a member of the House Freedom Caucus, supported reforms to the FISA amendments that would have put tighter restrictions on using secret surveillance of American citizens....

"Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) who tried to organize a filibuster to stop FISA from being reauthorized without reforms, applauded the memo's release for similar reasons....  Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) who attempted to get surveillance reform through the House and failed, has a like-minded thread of tweets....

"The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is no fan of Trump's, but it's one of the major civil liberties groups concerned about unwarranted FBI surveillance of Americans. And in the wake of the Nunes memo, it wants more information to come out. From Christopher Anders, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington Legislative Office:

Rather than one side or the other cherry-picking facts, all Americans deserve to see all of the facts, including both the minority report and the underlying documents. The goal should be more transparency, not less, particularly when a congressional committee chairman makes serious charges of abuse but does not provide the facts to either prove the charges or allow Americans to make up our own minds.

Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2018/02/02/heres-what-leaders-are-saying-about-the
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U.S. government "shutdown" looming in January

No Christmas shutdown – but Congress faces same crisis next month: 'It's maddening' | Fox News - Chad Pergram, Capital Attitude:

December 22, 2017 - "Lawmakers dashed out of Washington Thursday night after approving a short-term bill to run the government through Jan. 19. December was supposed to be an epic month on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers expected brawls over a host of seemingly intractable issues like military funding, disaster aid and DACA. Then there was the GOP aim to finish tax reform.

"The tax bill was the easy part. Republicans wrapped that with relative ease on Wednesday – and proceeded to shelve virtually every major issue until January....

"Did the holiday spirit simply prevail on lawmakers? Or, basking in the afterglow of tax reform, did Republicans simply come to their senses and realize it wasn’t a good idea to mess with a government shutdown at Christmas?

"But in the end, Democrats wanted to ditch Washington too. Democrats noted that the GOP controls both the House and Senate. If Republicans managed to discombobulate their tax reform victory by stumbling into a government shutdown around the holidays, fine. But if Republicans got their act together, Democrats knew the issues wouldn’t dissolve over the break. Democrats would hold even more leverage in January. Plus, Democrats thought they could force the president’s hand on a number of subjects just days before the State of the Union speech on Jan. 30.....

"Many conservatives with libertarian leanings were upset about attaching a temporary reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to the spending bill. Defenders of FISA consider the program a key tool in disrupting terrorism plots. But some lawmakers fear the operation could lead to spying on Americans without a warrant....

"Members of the Freedom Caucus abhorred the idea of re-upping FISA just to keep the government’s lights on. 'We want to change FISA,' said Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a Freedom Caucus member. 'We don’t want it on the CR (Continuing Resolution, which is shorthand for the spending bill)'....

"Things may even be harder come 2018. On Jan. 3, the Senate’s will swear in its newest members..... Sen.-elect Doug Jones, D-Ala., is prepared to take the seat of Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., after last week’s special election.

"In 2017, Republicans enjoyed a 52-48 edge in the Senate. That narrows to 51-49 ... in January."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/22/no-christmas-shutdown-but-congress-faces-same-crisis-next-month-its-maddening.html
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Let FISA surveillance law expire, says Sarwark

US Libertarian Party Wants Key Surveillance Law to Elapse Without Renewal - Sputnik International:

September 13, 2017 - "The US Libertarian Party (LP) does not want the controversial US surveillance law empowering authorities to carry out warrantless surveillance of foreign targets, to be reauthorized and instead suggests that it simply end ... by the start of 2018, the chairman of the party's executive body, the Libertarian National Committee, told Sputnik on Wednesday.

"In a letter dated September 7, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions and National Intelligence Director Dan Coats called on US Congressmen to permanently reauthorize Section 702 of a 2008 package of amendments to the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is set to expire at the end of the year....

"'We would like the bill to elapse completely and sunset and not to be renewed at all — not permanently, not for five years, not for even one year,' Nicholas Sarwark said, stressing that the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the country's law enforcement agencies had abused powers granted to them....

"'The US government has shown that it is unwilling to abide by rules laid out in legislation, while Congressmen have demonstrated that they are unwilling to exercise meaningful oversight, Sarwark continued. Therefore, the only sensible solution to the situation at this point is "to let the law elapse and start over if there are in fact legitimate intelligence gathering tools that can be done in a constitutional manner....

"'Law enforcement would always like to have more tools and the Constitution does not make law enforcement easier, it makes it harder. That is the point of our Constitution and it is exactly backward to say "well, can we make law enforcement’s job easier at the costs of individuals’ privacy,"' the politician suggested....

"Mass surveillance by US authorities in the United States and other countries was revealed in classified US documents published by former NSA employee turned whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, prompting criticism from governments, as well as human right advocates and activist groups across the globe."

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/us/201709131057355378-us-libertarians-surveillance-laws-end/
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The classified briefing that most of Congress missed, and why

The Hidden Classified Briefing Most of Congress Missed - Garance Franke-Ruta - The Atlantic:

September 20, 2013 - "Inside the House of Representatives, there is an internal communications system designed specifically for members and their staffs.... The 'e-Dear Colleague' system has existed since 2008 as an intranet database of messages ... and as a kind of listserv on official doings for the 435 representatives' offices. With so many people on the opt-in subscription service, the volume of email is high, which is why when there's an important intelligence briefing for members of Congress, staffers are formally notified directly by their party leaders in the House.

"Except in August, according to Rep. Justin Amash, when something extraordinary happened. An important national-security document the libertarian Michigan Republican and some of his colleagues on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence had been trying to see for some time was made available to all members on less than 24 hours' notice by the Intelligence Committee chair, with a viewing scheduled for when they were supposed to be voting, and on the very day Congress was set to begin its five-week summer recess. And the email went out through the 'e-Dear Colleague' system, where it was buried."

Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/09/the-hidden-top-secret-briefing-most-of-congress-missed/279857/
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